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Publisher's Summary

Captain Jack Aubrey, Royal Navy, ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the city. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionage - the province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey's humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? The dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization and sparkling dialogue which O'Brian's listeners have come to expect. This is the eleventh in O'Brian's 20-volume Aubrey/Maturin series.

Critic Reviews

"The best historical novels ever written." (The New York Times Book Review) "No writer alive can move one as O'Brian can; no one can make you laugh so loud with hilarity, whiten your knuckles with unbearable tension or choke with emotion. He is the master." (Irish Times)